Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont Scripps Senior Theses Scripps Student Scholarship 2016 Understanding Postcolonial South Asian Communities Through Bollywood Noor A. Asif Scripps College Recommended Citation Asif, Noor A., "Understanding Postcolonial South Asian Communities Through Bollywood" (2016). Scripps Senior Theses. Paper 788. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/788 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Scripps Student Scholarship at Scholarship @ Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in Scripps Senior Theses by an authorized administrator of Scholarship @ Claremont. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. UNDERSTANDING POSTCOLONIAL SOUTH ASIAN COMMUNITIES THROUGH BOLLYWOOD by NOOR ALAINAH ASIF SUBMITTED TO SCRIPPS COLLEGE IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS PROFESSOR SUSAN RANKAITIS PROFESSOR KASPER KOVITZ DECEMBER 11, 2015 1 Introduction Historically speaking, painting has been a predominantly white, male art form, that has often excluded or exoticized nonwhite individuals. Due to the emergence of imperialism and colonialism during the 19th century, these themes of exclusion and exoticism have continued to permeate the psyches of colonized peoples throughout the world. I am most interested in unpacking the effects that colonialism has had on South Asian people, including those who descend from Pakistan and India, by analyzing the world of Bollywood. Bollywood is an easily recognizable film universe in which song and dance, glamour, drama, love, and madness are oftrecurring tropes. I am most interested in Bollywood films from the 1960s1990s, when Western influences from Hollywood were beginning to make their way to South Asian screens. Several of these influences arose out of colonialism, specifically the desire for light skin, colored eyes, and an overall racially ambiguous appearance.